1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to surveillance systems and, in particular, to surveillance systems that generate multiple video streams. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for processing multiple video streams for an area.
2. Background
Aircraft are often used to perform surveillance of various locations. For example, an aircraft may be used to obtain information about the movement of people, pipelines, buildings, and/or other types of objects. Oftentimes, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are used for performing surveillance. An unmanned aerial vehicle may carry a camera system and other types of sensors. The camera system may include one or more cameras.
The unmanned aerial vehicle may be pre-programmed to move over particular areas or to follow selected moving objects. Other unmanned aerial vehicles may be controlled by an operator at another location. The operator may view the images from the camera system to provide further input to control movement of the unmanned aerial vehicle.
One type of surveillance that is performed using an unmanned aerial vehicle is persistent surveillance. With persistent surveillance, multiple unmanned aerial vehicles may be used to cover a particular area or object. Unmanned aerial vehicles may monitor an area to detect, identify, track, and/or provide other information about objects that may be present in that area. This type of persistent surveillance also may include following an object that has been identified that moves out of the particular area that is being monitored.
This type of surveillance may require more unmanned aerial vehicles than desired when the camera systems in these vehicles only include a single camera. As a result, unmanned aerial vehicles often include camera systems that may have 12, 30, 92, or some other number of cameras. In this manner, a single unmanned aerial vehicle may provide many video data streams for use in performing surveillance.
One issue with these types of camera systems occurs when the unmanned aerial vehicles are remotely operated by a human operator. A single human operator may be unable to look at the video data on the monitor and identify needed information to redirect the unmanned aerial vehicle as needed.
For example, if the unmanned aerial vehicle sends 30 data streams in which each of the data streams include one or more vehicles, the operator may concentrate on a single target and miss other information. Further, the rate at which data may be sent may be limited by the amount of bandwidth available for a communications link.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus that takes into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as possibly other issues.